CRITIQUE ON THE JANUARY HORTICULTURIST. 



413 



unexpected pleasure whin the natural order of 

 things is occasionally respected. One of the tastes 

 of the age is a taste for those showy and datable 

 improvements <>f which brick and mortar, stone 

 ami stucco, :uv the principal ingredients. Ours 

 is a building age. Wherevervou go, new church- 

 es, new mansions, new townhalls, new scliools, 

 and public buildings of all kinds meet your eve. 

 not to speak of the new creations and new style 

 which the railway has brought in. There is 

 Scarcely a family of rank, of wealth, or of stand- 

 lag, which has not overbuilt itself. Every where 

 you see houses and castles too large for their 

 owners, unfinished, neglected, consigned to a 

 housekeeper or a gardener, and answering no 

 other purpose than to chastise the pride of the 

 founder or immortalise his folly. You see a 

 wealthy and prosperous man — fortunate in his 

 family, his connexions, his character, and in every 

 other earthly material of happiness; he is a man 

 to single out from ten thousand — a man to be en- 

 vied and admired ; but you need not wait for the 

 period Solon asked for before you can pronounce 

 him altogether happy. There is a load on his 

 spirits which he can never shake off. Though he 

 refuses to think of it, and it is never mentioned in 

 his presence, it sits as a nightmare on his soul, 

 and. like the distant boom of artillery, is felt by 

 the inner man, though it reach not the bodily 

 senses. He has built a great house. It cost him 

 £20. 000, and he would gladly give another £20,- 

 000 that its site were the level greensward, or 

 that the merry plough was passing over its foun- 

 dations. From first to last it was a series of 

 blunders. The site, the size, the arrangement, 

 the style, the decorations, the estimates, the 

 choice of architect and builder, have all proved 

 unfortunate and mistaken. His wife hates the 

 house. His eldest son swears he will not live in 

 it. His younger sons abominate the hobby which 

 has stinted their allowances. Such is the use to 

 which £20,000, or five times that sum may be 

 applied, and has been applied in a multitude of 

 instances." 



For 20,000 pounds, the American may 

 read 20,000 dollars ; a sum double the 

 amount which any sensible man of mode- 

 rate landed estate should spend in a country 

 house in America. 



The family mansions of Washington, at 

 Mount Vernon, the Adamses, at Quincy, 

 of Jefferson, of Madison, of Jackson, Van 

 Buren, of Harrison, and Taylor, — some of 

 them quite wealthy men, and the others 

 reasonably so, — neither of them cost scarce 

 over 10,000 dollars, and some of them not 

 half that ; and those eminent chief magis- 



trates, rich in the high honors of a nation's 

 admiration, were and are gentlemen of 

 large hospitality. To them we may add 

 hundreds, in the past and present age, of 

 the most eminent names in our country, 

 whose plain, dignified, and unaffected style 

 of dwelling should be a sufficient example 

 for their countrymen. Even the great manor 

 houses of the elder Livingstons and Van 

 Rensselaers, whose acres counted by tens 

 of thousands, gave them almost unbounded 

 license in the amplitude of their mansions, 

 are thrown altogether into shade by the 

 garish splendor of the men of yesterday, 

 who appear to lay their chief claim to dis- 

 tinction and notoriety in the gew-gaw ex- 

 travagance of their country establishments, 

 — outbuilding by far even the solid, yet 

 quite sufficient retirements of such real 

 millionares as the Girards, the Astors, the 

 Brooks, and the Perkins, who preferred 

 the sensible repose of country life, when in 

 the enjoyment of it, to the exhibition of a 

 "show-place," for the amusement of a 

 gaping public. 



Rely upon it, Mr. Editor, this building 

 mania will take a turn " one of these 

 days." 



The Northern Sweet Apple. — I am glad 

 to see it ; a further proof that almost every 

 climate has its local fruits, best adapted to 

 its particular latitude. Like the delicate 

 and rich " Pomme Gris," of Canada, this 

 " Northern Sweet" may be a better fruit in 

 the region of Lake Champlain than at two 

 degrees further south. Its description is 

 that of a most superior apple. 



Rustic Arbors. — Sensible, and to the 

 point. If everybody will take the hints so 

 well pointed out here, our sight will be sel- 

 dom offended by the tawdry abortions which 

 some over-nice people are perpetually spend- 

 ing their time and money for, so out of all 

 taste and keeping. 



